


Lured Towards The Sea

by FictionPenned



Category: The Little Mermaid (1989)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:40:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27386584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/pseuds/FictionPenned
Summary: She may not be his dream girl, but he feels himself falling for her all the same, and the people around him can sense it. They offer him gentle nudges in her direction whenever possible, throwing winks and nods and knowing smiles at him whenever he passes by, commenting upon how beautiful and charming the palace’s new resident truly is. Every little urge brings him a little bit closer to her, opens his heart a little bit wider to the possibility, but that siren-like song still echoes in his ears, reminding him of what could be.There is a point, perhaps, when that song becomes an excuse.Written for Fic In A Box 2020.
Relationships: Ariel/Eric (Disney)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17
Collections: Fic In A Box





	Lured Towards The Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jungle_ride](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jungle_ride/gifts).



Eric has always been a romantic; it is part of the reason why he has always found himself drawn to the sea and all its many moods and mysteries. Indeed, the sea is so wrapped up in his identity that he hardly knows what it would have done had he been born into a landlocked kingdom. Perhaps he would have been content in his ignorance, but it is far more likely that he would have always felt a part of him calling out towards the unknown, in search of something greater and vaster and more important than himself.

He has similarly grand ideas of love, which has blossomed into more and more of an inconvenience with every passing day. Monarchs rarely bother with love. Marriage is a matter of alliances and diplomacy and well-matched chess games, but Eric pines for a deeper kind of companionship. He wants someone as beautiful and awe-inspiring and capricious as the sea itself, and he refuses to settle for anything less. Grimsby keeps tutting his tongue against the back of his teeth and pooh-poohing the idea at every opportunity, but Eric has learned to ignore him.

Besides, for the first time in his life, Eric has some tangible evidence that the perfect girl is out there somewhere. There had been a voice, a gentle hand on his face, a bright smile — a girl who somehow carried him to safety after his ship exploded and the sea nearly claimed him for its own.

They only met for a moment, yet he cannot seem to stop thinking about her. He has tried to pull his thoughts away, but they wander back every time. She holds his heart in his hands, and all he has to do is find her. He doesn’t know her name, nor did he get a good look at her face, but he would recognize that voice anywhere. He keeps his ears pricked as he wanders the beaches with Max and strolls down the busy streets of the kingdom, awaiting any hint of that voice or its song.

He has yet to hear it again, but he still continues to hold out hope. Eric is not a man who gives up easily.

But when a voiceless girl stumbles into his arms on a sun-struck morning, soft and lovely and wearing a smile, he feels his resolve begin to waver. This girl cannot be his rescuer, but she is kind and caring and energetic. She commands his attention whenever she enters the room. He feels his heart flutter when she looks his way, feels his stomach get caught in his throat when their hands brush, laughs at her antics as she twines her way through the kingdom.

She may not be his dream girl, but he feels himself falling for her all the same, and the people around him can sense it. They offer him gentle nudges in her direction whenever possible, throwing winks and nods and knowing smiles at him whenever he passes by, commenting upon how beautiful and charming the palace’s new resident truly is. Every little urge brings him a little bit closer to her, opens his heart a little bit wider to the possibility, but that siren-like song still echoes in his ears, reminding him of what could be.

There is a point, perhaps, when that song becomes an excuse.

Though Eric is not afraid of death or the sea or a grand adventure, he is afraid of doing the wrong thing, choosing the wrong person, making a mistake by abandoning the possibility that the perfect girl might still be out there. That fear rolls in his chest like a wave coming to shore, crashing and washing across the beach before retreating back into the ocean, biding its time and awaiting the moment when it might once again be thrust into the forefront.

It waits for an entire day.

He shows the voiceless girl around the kingdom, marveling at her while she, in turn, marvels at the world. She moves with the energy of someone experiencing life and freedom for the first time — an electric energy so infectious that it tugs him further and further into her orbit, until he, too, cannot help but laugh and smile and dance along with her. It chases the fear away, holds it at bay for a while, but still, it coils in wait, a tsunami slinking away from the beach before making its inevitable strike.

That strike does not arrive until night has fallen and the thought of a kiss situates itself firmly upon Eric’s lips. The act itself had been delayed by the sudden shock of a capsized boat and the chill of the water as it sunk into their clothes and turned their blood to ice, but the temptation lingers, even as he stands beneath her window with a flute in his hands and the thought of love playing across the keys.

Grimsby reminds him, not for the first time, that he ought to consider marring the girl, and it is a thought that feels realer than it had the day before. Eric knows her name now, if not her story. He’s glimpsed her heart. He’s allowed himself to be swept along in her seemingly inexorable current.

It would be easy, he thinks, to propose to her.

To offer her his heart and to have her offer him hers in return.

He waits for the fear to crash down upon him, but it doesn’t come.

Perhaps he could do it.

Perhaps he _will_ marry Ariel.

Perhaps he can forget that song and the woman who rescued him.

In a sudden, impulsive motion, he hurls the flute out into the waves beyond. It sings as it spins through the hair, but the splash as it hits the water is supplanted by a song rising on the wind.

Eric knows that voice, and the looming wave — overwhelming, torrential, legendary in its scope — finally makes its move.

Fear and anticipation rises bitterly in the back of his throat as he races towards the edge of the wall, desperate to finally set eyes upon the woman of his dreams, the woman who saved his life, the woman who has so consumed his thoughts.

There is a glow in the distant darkness — like magic and sorcery and things left unspoken.

And, as suddenly as the fear had descended upon him, it is stricken into nothingness.

Ariel is forgotten, love is forgotten, worry is forgotten, desire is forgotten, and strangely, all there is in Eric’s mind is a void and a single, pressing, foreign thought, directed by a voice that is not his own.

 _We need to be married tomorrow afternoon_.

Given no other option, given an absence of will and an utter dearth of emotion, Eric _succumbs_.


End file.
